More from India

Well, you got the first installment of our two-day trip a few days ago, in accordance with my belief that "getting there is half the fun"... Now I want to tell you about the highlight of the trip, as far as I'm concerned - the last temple we visited. The story is that we were at a waterfall, a temple (that actually reminded me of a soccer field, for reasons that I may elaborate on later...), then a palace (very impressive), and for the evening treat - we checked into a huge ashram-camp, that reminded everyone of army barracks. Then we went to the tourist attractions - the sea-side, which is actually the southern-most tip of India. We visited the Gandhi memorial and another temple (KanyaKumari, which means "virgin girl", a specific one to whom it's dedicated - three thousand years old!!). The next day we took a boat out to the rock islands that are just beyond the coast (beyond that - only Antarctica). I think I wrote a little about that in my Letter To Mom (I hope you guys don't mind - I just felt I had to communicate with her somehow).

After lunch we set out for a mountain-top (I'm using "we" in the spiritual sense - personally, I sat in the shade with a few other people at the bottom of the mountain and waited for the rest of the mad dogs & Englishmen to come out of the mid-day sun).

After all this, we came to the temple.

It was a bit of a ride before we got there, and the temple is in the middle of a small town that we had to drive through. The first thing that you notice is the roof, which is a seven-story pyramid of stone carvings. The whole damn thing is carved granite, little pavilions scattered around a huge enclosure, each one dedicated to a different deity. When we got in, evidently, the main event began. Bells clanging, drums beating, and somebody playing some kind of horn. The idea is that the gods, who are blissfully in nirvana, need to be woken up, if you want their attention. Nearly all the time we were there - at least an hour if not more - there were bells, drums, and the occasional horn. Not to mention the priest, proceeding from one pavilion to another, waving a potted fire in front of each little statue, and the devotees, prancing after him, hands in prayer position, wearing nothing but dhoties (which is what you call those little sheets, as I found out) and the occasional smear of color on their forehead and/or chest. Actually, those smears are much more than occasional, and we got our fair share of them... you can't visit a pavilion without a priest offering you a flower petal and some spices to smear on yourself.

Once again, I'm being kicked off the computer. I'm going to have to continue tomorrow...